[MD] Correctness and Usefulness

[Ham Priday]

Hi Platt --


[Ham quoted Pirsig's statement in LILA]:

> "Morals have no objective reality.  You can look through a microscope or
> telescope or oscilloscope for the rest of your life and you will never 
> find
> a single moral.  There aren't any there.  They are all in your head."

[Platt]:
> Check the context, Ham. Pirsig makes it clear that this
> is the perspective of subject-object science. It is NOT
> the perspective of the MOQ..

Okay, I'll admit that I picked up this quotation from another source.  On 
checking my copy of LILA, he does say that the subject-object approach of 
science is only concerned with facts and gives morals no reality. 
Nevertheless, whether it is the MoQ perspective or not, Pirsig has stated 
"They [i.e., morals] are all in your head".  And it was that statement which 
I was elaborating upon.

[Platt]:
> Do you and Edington find the Holocaust immoral?  If so,
> on what basis is your "value-sensibility" superior to Hitler's?

That's a "mean" retort, Platt.  Of course we find the Holocaust immoral. 
Like all tyrants, Power was the ultimate objective of Nazi fascism, and this 
end had greater value to Hitler than his means of achieving it. 
Exploitation of the masses and elimination of  "inferior" races may have 
served his perverted cause, just as martyrdom and the senseless bombing of 
innocent people serves the cause of Islamic extremists.

Morality isn't even an issue when we allow power to become an obsession. 
The quest for power not only corrupts one's ability to reason, it replaces 
all other values in the process.  In the Authentic Society I envision for 
mankind, such atrocities will be unthinkable.  When we understand that life 
affords us the opportunity to realize the value of our essential source, and 
that we are all agents of this source, morality will be viewed as rational, 
self-directed value.

(I'll be the first to admit that we have a long way to go.)

Essentially yours,
Ham